The institute was founded on March 1, 1963 as chair for heat and combustion technology. The first full professor was Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Heinrich Küttner, who passed away on January 6, 1964.
On November 26, 1964 he was succeeded by Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Sergius Traustel, who was known internationally for his work on gasification and flames.
After the retirement of Prof. Traustel in 1972, Prof. Dr. techn. Richard Doležal became head of the institute. Under his leadership, the focus of interest at the institute changed to steam generation technology and control engineering. The first simulation programs were developed to calculate the starting and load changing behavior of steam generators.
In Winter 1978/79 Prof. Doležal became head of the Institute for Process Engineering and Steam Boiler Technology (IVD) at the University of Stuttgart.
On July 1, Prof. Dr. techn. Reinhard Leithner became head of the Institute for Heat and Fuel Technology.
After the retirement of Prof. Oldekop in 1996, the Institute for Space- and Reactor-Technology was dissolved. The part of the institute related to regenarative and nuclear energy systems was incorporated into the Institute for Heat and Fuel Technology.
From 2007 until 2009, Prof. Dr.-Ing. M. Mönnigmann joined the institute as professor for integrated systems in the field of micro process engineering. The department for combustion technology and power plant technology is led by Akad. Oberrat Dr.-Ing. Horst Müller.
On January 1, 2012, Prof. Dr.-Ing. U. Krewer was inaugurated as the new head of the institute. At the same time, the institute was renamed to ,,Institute for Energy and Process Systems Engineering''. Since April 2020 she is the instiute head of the Institute for Applied Materials - Electrochemical Technologies at the KIT in Karlsruhe.
Since April 2021, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Daniel Schröder has been in charge of the institute.